


The darkness-stare

by lbmisscharlie



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Dancing, Dirty Talk, F/F, Fingerfucking, Gay Bar, Hiding, Internalized Homophobia, Period-Typical Homophobia, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wears trousers because Delia likes them, likes to walk behind her and follow the flat-heeled stride of her walk, to unbutton the front of her crisp white shirt and suck bruises on the tops of her breasts. She’s seen the way Delia eyes the bulldaggers at the Gates, knows she wouldn’t be against Patsy with her hair close-cropped and slick, wearing a suit and carrying herself with a swagger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The darkness-stare

Delia does teach Patsy how to play bridge, or at least imparts the rudimentaries before pushing Patsy into the pillows and straddling her hips, doing far more damage to Patsy’s shellacked hair than she thought possible. It’s their cover, the card game, not just tonight but for the occasions, once a month or so, when they go out dancing. A bridge circle is just boring enough that no one asks questions, and if they perhaps get distracted over a bite to eat afterwards, it would make perfect sense that they’d come in past ten. 

It’s strange: this big, almighty secret in their lives, and they’re neither of them good at planning subterfuge. It’s nothing like the other secret, the one they both carry heavy to their hearts, their strange difference. They don’t talk much about it – talking makes them both think of how it could be, if things could be different, and hope hurts too much – but for Patsy that secret is something she carries just under her skin, twisted in her capillaries, so close to exposure and yet such a part of her body that she can’t help but feel every movement is colored queer with it.

But dancing, the Gateways: that secret feels weighty and silly all at once, their lie a girlish artifice. It is, in fact, possible that everyone at Nonnatus sees right through it and thinks that they’re out on quiet double-dates, or at some sort of support group like Trixie. But there’s no other convincing plot that can conjure up. They can’t say they’ve been to the pictures, because Barbara loves nothing more than a detailed plot summary over a Horlicks, or to compare notes if she’s been to see it with Tom. They certainly can’t say they’ve been dancing, for Trixie knows every club in the city worth anything, and besides, she’d never approve of Patsy’s trousers for dancing. 

Patsy can’t tell her that she wears them because Delia likes them, likes to walk behind her and follow the flat-heeled stride of her walk, to unbutton the front of her crisp white shirt and suck bruises on the tops of her breasts. She’s seen the way Delia eyes the bulldaggers at the Gates, knows she wouldn’t be against Patsy with her hair close-cropped and slick, wearing a suit and carrying herself with a swagger. 

She is too fond of her frocks by half to give that to Delia full-time, but she can button her shirt down and turn up the hems of her trousers, can order her a drink and hold her arm as they walk. And Delia follows happily, fingertips grasping Patsy’s elbow, delighted little grin as Patsy tugs her this way and that, a lean up on her tiptoes to catch Patsy’s mouth as they lean against the bar. 

But Delia’s no one’s demure femme, either, for that sweet little mouth conceals the most wicked grin, and half the reason Patsy wears her trousers to the Gates is so that Delia can push her hand between Patsy’s legs when they’re up at the bar, can press the seam of her trousers up against Patsy’s cunt. 

Tonight, they have the very rare pleasure of a free night that can afford to run late: Patsy’s not on call until the afternoon, and Delia’s switched shifts at the London to start mid-morning. It is just possible that tumbling into Nonnatus in the small hours will disabuse anyone of believing their bridge club lie, but the thought of one more drink – or perhaps two – and dancing with Delia until she can feel sweat down the nape of her neck has left Patsy uncaring. 

The music is quick, and women spill across the dance floor, loose-limbed. Delia’s far better at this sort of dancing than Patsy, eyes bright and charmed as she grabs Patsy’s hand and shimmies. Patsy has training, precise steps and predictable beats, but Delia has instinct. There are moments when Patsy believes they can float off into a different world on the graceful turn of Delia’s wrist, the quick jump-step of her feet.

She bumps and brushes against others on the dancefloor, but it’s all part of the night, exuberance buoying them past any embarrassment at clumsiness. Delia spirals her out, hands clutched hard, slick and hot, and Patsy feels the snap at the end of the move, arm flung out. She twines herself back, Delia’s arm across her chest, Delia’s chin just at her shoulder.

It’s more of her body than she ever touches – ever – when other eyes are on them. Pressed right to the base of her neck, Delia’s mouth is hot, startling even in the close heat of the dancefloor. Patsy stifles her body’s involuntary jerk, painful self-protection, and instead inhales, lets herself feel the clutch of her gut, the flooding heat in her cunt. Sharpness she usually hides.

The song ends; a beat, two, before it starts up again. Her heart’s thudding is loud, enormous. Delia’s nudging her back into place, ready to start up again, but Patsy grasps her hand, hard, fierce, and tugs her off the dancefloor.

The air outside is crisp, once the door thuds shut behind them, closing off the miasma of sweat and smoke and ripened, loose bodies. Patsy gasps it in, like her lungs ache for want of it. Delia rubs her arm, making small murmurs of concern.

“I’m fine,” Patsy says. Deep breath in, breathe out. “I just needed some air,” she adds. At Delia’s pursed mouth, she knows it’s come out too bright, too like the voice she uses with patients every day. Gentle lies and heightened sincerity. Her stomach clutches. “We can go back in,” she says, softer now.

Delia looks up and down the street. It’s early yet; people are out, cars parked at the kerb, high trills of laughter floating across the street to them. All is awash with the iodine glow of the streetlamps. Tugging her wrist, Delia leads her away from the door and down the alley at the end of the building.

Between the snug press of the walls, the narrow space reeks of sour beer and urine, but it is empty.

“Care to tell me what all that fuss was about?”

Patsy shakes her head, begins to demure, but Delia fixes her with such a glare – the kind of look that brings the most intransigent patient to supplication, and Patsy should know better than to try her. “Doesn’t it sometimes feel like – like it’s far too much, touching like that, with others there?”

She can just see the glint of Delia’s eyes, the round rise of her cheek pale against the inky fall of her hair. “No,” Delia says, and takes her hand. “No, it’s perfect, it’s –” she has to lean up to kiss Patsy, and it sends her body off-kilter, pressing against Patsy’s for balance as their teeth clatter together. Taking a step back, Patsy braces one hand against the wall, cold rough brick against her sweating palm.

“We’re in public,” she says, voice low. 

Delia smiles, a sliver of a glint in the darkness. “It’s not too much,” she says, kissing her again. “It could never be enough, having you as my own. If I could when everyone was watching, I would.” Patsy knows it; knows that Delia is far braver than she could ever wish to be. She sneaks a glimpse down the alley; they’re alone.

“I know,” she says, “I know. I just – I was overwhelmed.” Delia nods. Her hands are on Patsy’s hips, thumbs pressing just under the rise of her pelvic bones. 

“You need to do things that scare you sometimes, Pats.” 

Patsy shakes her head, nose bumping Delia’s forehead. “Like kissing you in a dirty alleyway?”

She can feel the edge of Delia’s teeth just scrape her neck. “Or more,” Delia murmurs into her skin. “Men do it,” Delia says. “Out behind their clubs, in the dark.” Her hand creeps to Patsy’s flies, flicks open the top button. Patsy feels the movement deeper, in her gut. The alley is still empty. “Down on their knees in the grit,” Delia whispers, “sucking each other off.” Another button; Patsy groans.

“I’m not sucking you off out here,” she says, or gasps, and catches the gleam of Delia’s grin. She’s not stopping Delia’s hand from moving further down, though, either. 

“Pity,” Delia says. She pulls open another button; one to go. “I’d like to see you down on your knees for me. Getting those trousers dirty.” A little whimper chokes past Patsy’s lips. They don’t often play like this – words and fantasies and Delia pushing and pushing until Patsy falls apart, falls open for her. The walls of Nonnatus House may be thick, and they may hold any number of secrets, but Patsy doesn’t particularly fancy having Nurse Crane knock concernedly on the door after one too many thumps or groans. 

It’s a shame, though: a shame they don’t have four walls of their own, and all their own air to breathe. It is especially shameful that she doesn’t get to hear, quite regularly, the way Delia’s voice slips dark and rough as she pulls Patsy close and tells how she’d like to see her down between her legs. She says this as she pops open the last button, and despite herself Patsy’s knees go trembling as Delia slips her hand between her legs.

“God, Pats, you’re soaking.” Delia’s voice is muffled against Patsy’s collar, where it’s just possible she’s leaving a lipstick mark. Patsy doesn’t care; she cares about the hot, slick slide of Delia’s fingers, dragging up the valleys of her cunt, and about the way Delia’s pressed against her, legs intertwined. 

She keeps her head turned toward the street; each thump and shout and roar of an engine sends her pulse fluttering. She knows the mechanics of it: regular heartbeats going rapid with adrenaline, the body keyed up to respond to threats: all perfectly natural. But still, with Delia, with Delia’s hand rubbing at her cunt and her face turned up, pale and shocking, her mind trips over fairy tales of smitten hearts. 

If she were to tease, to touch lightly and draw her fingers away, Patsy might have time to remember all of her fears. As it is, though, Delia slides her fingers up inside of her, pressing all against her swollen, hot edges, and ruts the meaty part of her palm up against her clit, all so quick and harsh that Patsy can only think of the blood that pulses quick and enchanted through her veins, that pools in her cunt. She bites down, hard, clenches her teeth together on the sounds that want to spill from her mouth, and listens to the soft, filthy words Delia murmurs against the bare skin of her neck, nonsensical and frantic. 

“Go on, darling, come on, come for me, please,” each word a hot exhale on her sweat-cooled skin, each word disappearing in the air in this hidden moment. Patsy rocks her hips, ruts against Delia, scrabbles her fingertips against the rough brick, feels her blood and her nerves and her muscles throb. Her gasp whistles between her teeth as Delia inches her to the edge, shoving against her cunt like she’s giving her life, like she’s bringing her heart back to beating.

Her climax hits with the hard thud of her head against the brick wall, with the tight knots of her calves as her body goes tense and then floods with lifeblood and warmth. Panting, she drops her head to Delia’s shoulder. The world is quiet, close, tight; there are no other eyes. Delia slides her hand from Patsy’s trousers, rubs it against her skirt. 

A clatter sounds too close, the neck of the alley, and Patsy stiffens, holds her breath. The streetlamp glow is not broken; no one seems to accompany the crash. Gently, Patsy lifts Delia’s hands from her hips, reaching between them to do up her flies. 

She leans in, kisses Delia softly. “Let’s get home. I bet Trixie’s already asleep and won’t even notice if I’m not there until morning.” Delia bites her lip; Patsy so wants to touch her. But the world has come back to her now, loud and angry. She takes Delia’s arm, tucks it close, and steps away from the wall.

It’s not bravery to do what you want, but only in tight, close, beer-reeking alleys. Not bravery like she’s seen. Not even like some of the women she sees in the Gates; she knows some of them live on their own, or with their sweethearts, and wear their secrets on their broad lapels, on their smartly-tied ties. But she’s lost Delia once, and she cannot face it again, and so they’ll snatch the dark places and make them their own until the world gives them something brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Murial Ruykeser's "Song: Lying in Daylight," coincidentally from her collection _The Gates_ :
> 
> Lying in daylight, in the strong  
> light of all our fantasies,  
> now touch speaking to touch, touch sees -  
> night and light, the darkness-stare,  
> your long look that pierces where  
> light never came till now -  
> moving is what we do,  
> moving we are, searching,  
> going high and underground,  
> rain behind rain pouring down,  
> river under river going  
> silence on silence  
> sound under sound.


End file.
